End of Story
Peter Abrahams
William Morrow
Hardcover
336 pages
April 2006

The latest thriller from author Peter Abrahams (Oblivion, A Perfect Crime, The Fan) is a psychological thriller, mystery, and life of a frustrated writer all blended into End Of Story. Ivy Seidel is a struggling unpublished writer, drowning in self-doubt and rejection letters (and waiting to be published so she can officially call herself a writer without going through a long explanation) who works in a bar to earn a living. After getting another rejection letter from The New Yorker, Ivy talks to her friend Joel who is leaving for Los Angeles - his script sold as a vehicle for Adam Sandler:

He walked her down the street.

“I was thinking of asking you something,” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

“What?”

“The Dannemora thing,” he said. Joel taught a state-sponsored inmate writing course at a prison upstate. “I won’t be able to do it anymore. I was going to just call and cancel, unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you’d like to take it over.”

Ivy gazed at Joel’s face. It was a beautiful day, as beautiful as September gets in New York, the sky unclouded, the air somehow full of promise. For a moment she thought she could see what he would look like a long way down the road. “The drive up’s a drag,” he said, “but the gig’s not completely uninteresting. And it pays a hundred bucks. Plus gas.”

Ivy takes the “gig,” and the naïve writer soon realizes that one of her students, Evan Vance Harrows, is actually much more talented that she is. Through one of Harrow’s incredible stories, Ivy gets the sensation that Harrow is an innocent man. Though intimidated at first, Seidel gets a look at Harrow’s “jacket” and begins an investigation into his life prior to his incarceration in an effort to separate fact from fiction. It soon becomes Seidel’s quest to clear his name, but as this occurs, she unravels information that puts her life in jeopardy.

Overall, this will really resonate with writers who can relate to the struggle. The mystery aspect is good, but it is a slow build in terms of story - although it doesn’t get bogged down in endless exposition. End Of Story is a solid thriller with enough meat on its bones to keep everyone happy.